The megachurch, this relatively small number of very large (any Protestant Christian congregation that has attendance 2,000 or more persons on a weekend) Protestant Christian churches has the same number of attendees at weekly services (roughly 4.5 million) as the smallest 35 percent of churches in the country.

Yet, in spite of the trends, myths and misconceptions, Thumma and Travis point out that these megachurches are doing something right.

“Megachurches do have things to tell all of American Christianity about changes that are taking place in American society, and at least certain ways to minister and translate the Gospel to those folks,” Thumma said.

Though size is one defining factor of a megachurch, Thumma admits that it is not the only contributing factor.

“It’s in fact, much more complex than that. Because it’s not necessarily just about the number. There’s nothing magical about 2,000. Although the vast majority of megachurches are in this 2,000 to 3,000 range.  If you look at one of these churches over five or ten years, you see that they fluctuate from 1,700 and 1,800 to 2,500 and back down,” said Thumma.

However, he said once a congregation gets to that size, it means that it is a large organization and it has all kinds of complex dynamics that have to be addressed in certain ways.  Once a church reaches this size, it begins to give it characteristics of a general class of churches that function differently then smaller congregations do.

“You have to think about parking logistics, and you have to think about getting people from their cars into the sanctuary with more ease than if you just have one door, one sanctuary and 45 spaces,” he said. “You have to think about the service, in and out, and when the next service comes in, and the style of leadership, how are we going to budget, how are we going to utilize technology. It begins to bring in all kinds of organizational questions in some ways that are outside of the typical (parameters) of the church. If its size is 200 or 300, typically, those kinds of questions don’t come up. Clearly, once you move to the larger scale, congregations have to adapt and shift,” he said.

It’s these kinds of things that put larger churches in a class that is different than that of smaller churches.

“We hope to draw people to the information that we have collected, and that other people have collected about megachurches, what they look like, how they function, what their characteristics are to try dispel the myths and to clear up some of the misunderstandings about the megachurches,” Thumma said.